v
/v/
"v" is a 1-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“v” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #937) as a character. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #937
- frequency rank, English
- 969
- “V” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The twenty-second letter of the English alphabet, called vee and written in the Latin script.
Corpus desk
Index EN-v · v · English
v · rank #937 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #937
- LEN-SHORT 1 letters
- VOW-0 0 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 969
- PHOTO-FINISH towards
Nearest frequency peer: towards (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “v”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- sir
sir
99,067 corpus weight
- success
success
99,066 corpus weight
- towards
towards
99,065 corpus weight
- v
v
99,064 corpus weight
- waiting
waiting
99,063 corpus weight
- ways
ways
99,062 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “v” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | v |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Character |
| IPA | /v/ |
| Letters | 1 |
| Frequency rank | #937 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “v” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for v is neighbouring look-alikes ("VA", "vi", …), not just typos; it is acharacter pronounced /v/. Frequency #937 among 969 “V” headwords. Gloss: "The twenty-second letter of the English alphabet, called vee and written in the Latin script.".
No misspelling variants are generated for v in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "VA", "vi", "VR", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English lower case letter v (also written u), from Old English lower case u and respelling of Old English f between vowels and voiced consonants. * Old English lower case f from 7th century replacement by Latin lower case f of the Anglo-Saxon Fu… The correct English form is v, spelled V.
Definition
- 1The twenty-second letter of the English alphabet, called vee and written in the Latin script.
Etymology
From Middle English lower case letter v (also written u), from Old English lower case u and respelling of Old English f between vowels and voiced consonants. * Old English lower case f from 7th century replacement by Latin lower case f of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc letter ᚠ (f, “feoh”), derived from Etruscan letter 𐌅 (v). * Old English lower case u from 7th century replacement by Latin lower case v of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc letter ᚢ (u, “ur”), derived from Raetic letter u. Before the 1700s, the pointed form v was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form u was used elsewhere, regardless of sound. So whereas valor and excuse appeared as in modern printing, have and upon were printed haue and vpon. Eventually, in the 1700s, to differentiate between the consonant and vowel sounds, the v form was used to represent the consonant, and u the vowel sound. v then preceded u in the alphabet, but the order has since reversed.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What to do next
You've looked up "v". Here's where to go from here.
- "v" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "VA". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #937 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "V" letter cohort. V–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.